kscans

Chapter 436 - Kasuga

I had a brother, five years older than me.

Half the time, people would say, 'You two look so much alike.'

The other half, they'd say, 'You don't look much alike at all.'

I always thought we weren't alike in the slightest. Not our faces, not our personalities, not our abilities, nothing… He was someone so far beyond me I could never hope to reach him.

The age gap wasn't the reason. It wasn't just me; my brother was exceptional even compared to his peers. He was special even when compared to adults.

A hawk born from a kite—that's what I heard my parents say once. My brother, who demonstrated extraordinary talent in academics, sports, and various other fields, was a local celebrity whom everyone knew.

In contrast, his younger brother was utterly mediocre. The only point of 'similarity' one could argue was our vaguely similar facial features.

When people spoke of the 'Kasuga's son,' they meant my brother—Haruka Kanade. And Haruka Nozomi was simply known as Kanade's younger brother.

Naturally, the way people looked at us dissimilar brothers was skewed… but my brother, in turn, looked out for me all the more.

He was the brother I was proud of, the brother I loved.

Even when I was compared to him, even when I was shown my inferiority, he was someone who made me feel like I could hold my head high and say, 'So what?' I think I was even proud of being 'Haruka Kanade's younger brother.'

Through elementary, middle, and high school, it would have been normal for him to find hanging out with his brother, five years his junior, boring and troublesome, but whenever he came home, he always played with me.

He helped me with my studies, cooked meals and snacks for me, and on days off, he took me to all sorts of places.

He was my brother, my best friend, my idol, and my hero—until six years ago.

That year, just as I started middle school, my brother, then a third-year in high school, got a girlfriend.

I only met her once. I remember being flustered when a beautiful woman with long, chestnut-colored hair, who seemed a perfect match for my brother, greeted me.

It was a well-known fact that my brother, who was naturally popular with many girls, never paid any of them any mind because he was too busy doting on his little brother.

I was aware that I was earning some slight resentment from those around him because of it, but I remained indifferent, thinking, 'So what?'

So for him to suddenly bring home a girlfriend was a huge shock. If my parents had been home, it would have been a major event for the entire Kasuga household.

…It would have been nice if such a peaceful event had followed.

To be honest, my parents never told me the full story of what happened to my brother. But, well, the result was that everything turned into a complete mess.

At first, he just started coming home late every day. Then he started staying out all night occasionally, and when he did come home, I'd see him arguing with our parents.

My brother had always had an extremely good relationship not just with me, but with our father and mother as well. Seeing him shouting with a fury I had never witnessed before, I remember thinking in a daze, 'Who is that?'

And in the end, Haruka Kanade left home upon graduating high school.

Not in the sense of moving out to be independent—it was, for all intents and purposes, a 'disappearance.' Around the same time, another student from a different school also vanished… so, well, you can imagine what that meant.

From there, it was a predictable course of events: a massive uproar, police reports, and so on. The story of a local celebrity disappearing naturally spiraled out of control—

We decided to move to escape the constant prying eyes,

I was forced to transfer schools for the first time in my life,

my father, after a series of struggles, ended up quitting his job and looking for a new one,

and my mother's health broke, and she was hospitalized.

In spectacular fashion, the Kasuga family had collapsed, all stemming from Kanade's 'romance.' Again, I wasn't told what happened, but it must have been 'something' on a level that could cause all that.

Did he fall into a star-crossed love affair in this day and age? He truly was an extraordinary guy.

And then, the very, very end.

About four and a half years ago, two years after my brother disappeared.

News arrived that someone believed to be Haruka Kanade had passed away in a hospital somewhere.

And that was the end of it all.